Now, surprise-surprise, media has unearthed a 5-month prison bid in Pope’s background, after the former Miami University cheerleader defrauded her employer, Ernst & Young, out of $77,000 in 1999. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons, Pope claimed funds from work to attend a fake educational course, reports The Daily Mail UK.

My response to that?

Why in the world should we care?

Want to Keep Up With NewsOne.com? LIKE Us On Facebook!

As previously reported by NewsOne, Pope dated Ryan in the ’90’s; since that time she has gone on to marry Micheal Thompson in a wedding ceremony attended by Ryan and his wife, Jenna. She is now an I.T. specialist in Chicago and an avid Obama supporter.

Wait…there it is.

She’s now an avid Obama supporter.

Clearly, there can be no other reason why she was first trotted out like a Black, show-room pony to prove that Ryan is not racist, which, by the way, no one has claimed. The fact is that his proposed polices further a racist structure that exists in this country to maintain White privilege — only token minorities allowed. None of this is changed because he “casually dated” a Black woman during his wild and crazy college days.

Thomas Jefferson had Sally Hemings. Strom Thurman had Carrie ‘Tunch’ Butler. To be very clear, that is in no way to compare Pope to a slave or house servant, but to illustrate that neither one of the aforementioned forays into sisterhood shaped the political policies of Jefferson and Thurman. There is absolutely nothing wrong with interracial relationships, but when said relationship is placed on display with all the legitimacy of “See, I have a Black friend,” it does nothing but reveal Ryan’s use of Pope as campaign fodder.

When it was revealed that Obama dated White women in his past, I don’t recall hearing about their backgrounds. As a matter of fact, I don’t recall hearing about any of Ryan’s White girlfriends either. Pope’s importance here is that she is Black. First it served the GOP well to present her as a “good” Black woman; now, as an Obama supporter, it serves them well to present her as criminal.

Whatever she has done, or will do, is nothing compared to the criminality that will reign if her ex-boyfriend is the next Vice-President of the United States.